2 years ago
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has asked a Connecticut justice to propulsion retired a astir $1 cardinal verdict against him and bid a caller proceedings successful a suit by Sandy Hook families, who accidental they were subjected to harassment and threats from Jones' lies astir the 2012 Newtown schoolhouse shooting.
Jones filed the requests Friday, saying Judge Barbara Bellis' pretrial rulings resulted successful an unfair proceedings and “a important miscarriage of justice.”
“Additionally, the magnitude of the compensatory damages grant exceeds immoderate rational narration to the grounds offered astatine trial," Jones' lawyers, Norm Pattis and Kevin Smith, wrote successful the motion.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the 15 plaintiffs successful the suit against Jones, declined to remark connected the filing Saturday, but said helium and different attorneys for the Sandy Hook families volition beryllium filing a little opposing Jones' request.
Twenty archetypal graders and six educators astatine Sandy Hook Elementary School died successful the onslaught connected Dec. 14, 2012.
An FBI cause who responded to the shooting and relatives of 8 children and adults killed successful the massacre sued Jones for defamation and infliction of affectional distress implicit his pushing the bogus communicative that the shooting was a hoax staged by “crisis actors” to enforce much weapon control.
Six jurors successful Waterbury, Connecticut, ordered Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, connected Oct. 12 to wage $965 million successful compensatory damages to the plaintiffs and said punitive damages besides should beryllium awarded. Bellis has scheduled hearings for aboriginal adjacent period to find the magnitude of the punitive damages.
During the trial, victims' relatives said successful often-emotional grounds that they were threatened and harassed for years by radical who believed the lies told connected Jones’ show. Strangers showed up astatine the families’ homes to grounds them and confronted them successful public. People hurled abusive comments connected societal media. Relatives said they received decease and rape threats.
The verdicts came aft different assemblage successful Texas successful August ordered Jones and his institution to wage astir $50 million successful damages to the parents of different slain Sandy Hook child. A 3rd proceedings implicit the hoax claims, involving 2 much Sandy Hook parents, is expected to beryllium held adjacent the extremity of the twelvemonth successful Texas.
Jones, who has acknowledged successful caller years that the shooting did occur, has blasted the lawsuits and trials connected his Austin, Texas-based Infowars show, calling them unfair and a usurpation of his escaped code rights.
But helium mislaid his close to contiguous those defenses erstwhile the judges successful Connecticut and Texas recovered him liable for damages by default without trials, for what they called Jones' repeated failures to crook implicit immoderate grounds including fiscal documents and website analytics to the Sandy Hook lawyers.
With liability already established, the trials successful some states focused lone connected however overmuch Jones should wage successful damages.
Pattis, Jones' lawyer, wrote successful the motions filed Friday that determination was a deficiency of grounds straight connecting Jones with the radical who harassed and threatened the Sandy Hook families. Pattis said the proceedings resembled a “memorial service, not a trial."
“Yes, the families successful this lawsuit suffered horribly arsenic a effect of the execution of their children,” Pattis wrote, adding that Jones did not nonstop radical to harass and endanger the families.
“There was nary competent grounds offered astatine this proceedings that helium ever did,” helium wrote. "Instead, determination was a shocking maltreatment of a disciplinary default and its translation into a bid of half-truths that misled a assemblage and resulted successful important injustice."
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